Bladestitched Skaab

The lord in two colors, which is the whole cost of admission here. Zombie tribal has lived almost entirely in mono-black, where the anthem effects (Death Baron, Lord of the Undead, Cemetery Reaper) all cost a single color and reward a heavily black manabase. Stapling the +1/+0 to a blue-black shell is a deliberate reach into a corner of the tribe that plays differently: the graveyard-recursion, mill-and-return builds that Innistrad's decayed-Skaab flavor has always leaned into, where blue supplies the card advantage black cannot. The 2/3 body matters more than a lord's stat line usually does. Most anthem creatures are fragile because the anthem is the point; a three-toughness front lets this one survive the incidental red damage that clears the small attackers it buffs, so the +1/+0 stays online through the turns it needs to. What it gives up in exchange is scope: the pump only touches other Zombies, it only adds power, and it only functions in a build committed enough to two colors to justify the fixing. That is the trade the card makes. It is not trying to be the best Zombie lord; it is the one that exists so a Dimir Zombie deck can have a lord at all.